Correspondence: Patron-Client Relationships Correspondence Tongª Kim Keren Yarhi-Milo, Arms, Alliances, and Patron-Client Alexander Lanoszka, Relationships and Zack Cooper To the Editors (Tongª Kim writes): In “To Arm or to Ally?” Keren Yarhi-Milo, Alexander Lanoszka, and Zack Cooper pre- sent an elegant and powerful theory that explains conditions under which a great power (in their case, the United States) offers a client state arms, an alliance commit- ment, or both.1 Their article does not give due attention, however, to what motivates a patron to provide security assistance to clients in the ªrst place—especially its de- sire to inºuence its clients to obtain concessions in military, political, economic, and other policies.2 Below I explain how Yarhi-Milo, Lanoszka, and Cooper’s conceptual- ization of key variables inadvertently plays down the role of inºuence-seeking in U.S. policy. First, Yarhi-Milo, Lanoszka, and Cooper’s conceptualization of arms transfers does not reºect the wide range of ways in which a patron can support a client and the signiªcant differences among the types of arms transfers with regard to buying inºu- ence. Their conceptualization of arms transfers, in which “a state gives another state weapons to augment its military capabilities” (p. 95), “covers multiple methods of pro- vision, including sales, grants, and loans” (p. 97). As they discuss at the beginning of the article, however, the United States spends large sums of money on security assis- tance worldwide, a signiªcant portion of which is spent on things other than U.S. arms (p. 91). Israel, for example, has been allowed by the U.S. government to use about Tongª Kim is Assistant Professor in the Department of International Affairs at Vesalius College. For helpful comments, he is grateful to Carolin Liss and Luis Simón. Keren Yarhi-Milo is an assistant professor of politics and international affairs in Princeton University’s Pol- itics Department and the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs. Alexander Lanoszka is Lecturer in the Department of International Politics at City, University of London. Zack Cooper is a se- nior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 1. Keren Yarhi-Milo, Alexander Lanoszka, and Zack Cooper, “To Arm or to Ally? The Patron’s Dilemma and the Strategic Logic of Arms Transfers and Alliances,” International Security, Vol. 41, No. 2 (Fall 2016), pp. 90–139, doi:10.1162/ISEC_a_00250. Subsequent references to this article ap- pear parenthetically in the text. 2. For a supply-side analysis of security provision through alliances and an argument that empha- sizes the importance of nonmilitary concessions in alliance politics, see Tongª Kim, The Supply Side of Security: A Market Theory of Military Alliances (Redwood City, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2016). International Security, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Winter 2017/18), pp. 183–186, doi:10.1162/ISEC_c_00307 © 2018 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 183 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/ISEC_c_00307 by guest on 24 September 2021 International Security 42:3 184 26 percent of its U.S. Foreign Military Financing to purchase Israeli weapons.3 Pakistan, in addition to Foreign Military Financing, had received about $13 billion by 2015 in Coalition Support Fund assistance for “operational and logistical support of U.S.-led counterterrorism operations.”4 Because military aid other than arms transfers can increase the military capabilities of clients, it deserves analysis. At the same time, it is problematic not to differentiate sales, grants, and loans in analyzing transactions be- tween allies. For instance, Japan has received more arms from the United States than Israel, but letting Japan buy U.S. arms with Japanese money is much less of a patron’s favor to a client than giving Israel money to buy U.S. arms.5 Second, Yarhi-Milo, Lanoszka, and Cooper deªne “commonality of security inter- ests” as “the extent of the threat that the client’s primary adversary poses to the pa- tron’s core security interests” (p. 98), but their deªnition neglects the importance of the patron and client agreeing on how to deal with the adversary. For instance, in the early years of the Cold War, South Korea’s and Taiwan’s adversaries were also U.S. adversar- ies, but these clients’ preference for offensive strategies posed signiªcant problems for Washington. The United States, therefore, needed to exert inºuence on both states. In fact, one of the major motivations for the U.S. government in offering an alliance com- mitment to South Korea was to gain inºuence over its president, Syngman Rhee, who had tried to sabotage the Korean War armistice.6 Even when a patron shares an adver- sary with a client, inºuencing the client remains an important objective. Third, Yarhi-Milo, Lanoszka, and Cooper argue that the perceived military balance between the client and its main adversary affects the patron’s willingness to provide costly arms. They ªnd that policymakers who argued that the military balance did not favor a client or that it was shifting against it advocated costly transfers. It is also plau- sible, however, that those who would like to support a client use the military balance as a justiªcation. Since the policy transition to costly arms transfers, Israel has received large amounts of military aid from the United States despite Israel’s military superior- ity against its adversaries. It is unclear how much of an advantage would be enough 3. Jeremy Sharp, “U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel” (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, June 10, 2015), p. 6. 4. K. Alan Kronstadt, “Pakistan-U.S. Relations: Issues for the 114th Congress” (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, May 14, 2015), p. 14. 5. For “all transfers of major conventional weapons from 1950 to the most recent full calen- dar year,” see the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Arms Transfers Database at https://www.sipri.org/databases/armstransfers. As early as mid-1962, the United States tried to offset the adverse balance of U.S. military expenditures in Japan by selling U.S. arms to Japan. See Shingo Nakajima, Sengo Nihon no Boei Seisaku: “Yoshida Rosen” wo Meguru Seiji/Gaiko/Gunji [Japa- nese defense policy in the postwar era: Politics, diplomacy, military affairs, and the “Yoshida Doc- trine”] (Tokyo: Keio Gijuku Daigaku Shuppankai, 2006), p. 240. 6. See “President Dwight Eisenhower’s Letter to President Syngman Rhee of Korea, Concerning Acceptance of the Panmunjom Armistice,” June 7, 1953, John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters, eds., American Presidency Project, University of California at Santa Barbara, http://www.presidency .ucsb.edu/ws/?pidϭ9869. Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/ISEC_c_00307 by guest on 24 September 2021 Correspondence: Patron-Client Relationships 185 for the United States to reduce this aid. Meanwhile, some shifts in which states receive more U.S. military aid—for example, Pakistan after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001—seem to have little to do with the local military balance and are more about buying the clients’ concessions to facilitate U.S. policy. In some cases, im- proving the military balance is less important than buying inºuence over the clients. Consider, for example, the Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt, and U.S. aid to the two states. Finally, even though Yarhi-Milo, Lanoszka, and Cooper ªnd in primary and declas- siªed documents that “U.S. decisionmakers often discussed using arms to obtain lever- age with Israel,” they dismiss this alternative argument by saying that “U.S. decisionmakers recognized the difªculties associated with using arms for such pur- poses” (p. 135). Buying inºuence and deciding how best to use it is difªcult, but this does not invalidate the importance of patrons seeking to exert inºuence over their cli- ents. As Yarhi-Milo, Lanoszka, and Cooper note, future research should further theo- rize and examine the nature of patron-client relationships (pp. 136–138).7 —Tongª Kim Brussels, Belgium Keren Yarhi-Milo, Alexander Lanoszka, and Zack Cooper Reply: By highlighting some gaps in our argument regarding when great powers offer their clients arms transfers or alliances, Tongª Kim helpfully outlines how “future research should further theorize and examine the nature of patron-client relationships.”1 We see several opportunities for moving this research agenda forward. One avenue for future research is disaggregating the meaning of “military aid.” In our article, we sought to examine how patrons choose between two types of commit- ments often discussed in the existing literature: arms transfers and alliances. We em- phasized how alliances can differ in their conditionality and how arms transfers vary in cost, spillover potential, and entrapment risk. As Kim observes, however, “it is prob- lematic not to differentiate sales, grants, and loans in analyzing transactions between allies.” Further research in this area would beneªt from heeding his advice on how to address this issue. Scholars should disaggregate military aid to examine systematic variation using theories about the conditions under which sales, grants, or loans are offered. 7. It would also be interesting to apply Yarhi-Milo, Lanoszka, and Cooper’s argument to the anti- Soviet alliance between the United States and Israel, formed in 1981 and dissolved with the col- lapse of the Soviet Union. 1. Keren Yarhi-Milo, Alexander Lanoszka, and Zack Cooper, “To Arm or to Ally? The Patron’s Di- lemma and the Strategic Logic of Arms Transfers and Alliances, International Security, Vol. 41, No. 2 (Fall 2016), pp. 90–139, doi:10.1162/ISEC_a_00250. Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/ISEC_c_00307 by guest on 24 September 2021 International Security 42:3 186 Scholars could also examine how military aid helps patrons inºuence their clients.